Early Human Migration Patterns

The routes of early human migration are still yet to be extensively scientifically investigated. But thanks to new computer-assisted research methods it is now increasingly possible to simulate these waves of migration and to understand what techniques the hominins used and how they interacted with their environment. The oldest human fossils of the islands of South East Asia were found at the Sangiran site on Java (Indonesia), which as a result has received UNESCO World Heritage classification. The international research project “Pleistoscene Hominin Migration of Java: Multi-Scale Agent-Based Model Simulation” sets out to investigate the migration patterns of early hominins in Asia; the initial focus of the study is on the period dating back around 1.2 to 0.8 million years. The study design takes the form of a so-called agent-based model (ABM): This simulates the behavior of human individuals or groups with different technical abilities (agents), who interact with a number of varying parameters such as the seasons, precipitation, temperature fluctuations, food resources or habitat size, number, species and the behavior of food animals and predators. This research project, which is conducted by the Paleoanthropological Section of the Senckenberg Natural History Museum under the management of Prof. Dr. Friedemann Schrenk, is jointly supported by the Daimler and Benz Foundation, the Werner Reimers Foundation and the Johanna Quandt University Foundation.